Sorrentino's presidential drama raises curtain on Venice festival

By Crispian Balmer

VENICE (Reuters) -Paolo Sorrentino’s “La Grazia” opened the 82nd Venice Film Festival on Wednesday, with the Oscar-winning director revealing that his latest movie was inspired by a real-life political dilemma that raised profound moral questions.

Starring Sorrentino’s longtime collaborator Toni Servillo and Anna Ferzetti, the film follows the final months in office of a fictional Italian president who must decide whether to approve a law allowing euthanasia and whether to pardon two prisoners convicted of murder.

Sorrentino told reporters the story was prompted by President Sergio Mattarella’s 2019 decision to grant clemency, (“grazia” in Italian), to a man who killed his Alzheimer’s-afflicted wife.

“It immediately seemed like an interesting moral dilemma to tell,”